Climate Refugees: A Looming Threat

It is imperative that there should be a context-specific approach to the looming threat and uncertainty created by the legal lacuna regarding climate refugees.

Despite the nonsensical denials of the Trump presidency, climate change is a factual consequence of  industrialization and technological advancement. Apart from Trump, denials on this issue that prevail among some states, especially the ones who are most responsible for releasing greenhouse gases (GHGs). Millions of people are displaced from their homes as a consequence. Rising temperatures, droughts, floods, desertification, tropical cyclones, glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) and other natural disasters have disrupted the livelihood of many communities. Such events testify to the effects of changing climate. The climate displacement projected by World Bank (143 million by 2050) and other institutions varies in numbers but it is significant. The non-applicability of the Refugee Convention 1951 to climate refugees (or environmental refugees) has kept these persons outside the scope of the assistance provided by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and other relevant organizations; and it has placed them at higher risk when faced with such disasters.

What is more worrying is that, some countries facing this problem have not even developed a migration policy. The Refugee Convention 1951 was drafted after the Second World War and only covers refugees fleeing persecution on the basis of the five convention reasons, i.e. race, religion, nationality, membership of a political ground and/or political opinion. Overall a threat is looming on the international plane and the situation presents a threat to existing order and it has a complicated history. Climate refugees (also called ‘environmental migrants’) mostly migrate inside the country and travel at short distances from their areas seeking a chance of rehabilitation. However, their decision to migrate depends on the scale and nature of the disaster.

Alexey Dedov: ‘Russia is working with Pakistan to counter terrorism’

Russia has cut down its nuclear capacity by 85 per cent over the past 30 years, says Moscow’s envoy

Together with Moscow’s ongoing campaign against Ukraine, murky Russian involvement in the bloody Syrian conflict and the recent Novichock attacks in Salisbury, UK, have badly tarnished Russia’s reputation as a responsible global power. Equally, Trump’s new policy of maligning Pakistan despite its contributions to the causes of the western world have left Islamabad in a similar predicament. Below is the media reporting on the recent talk by the Russian Ambassador in Pakistan. Keeping his promise to return that he made during his first visit to The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs in 2015, Ambassador of the Russian Federation in Pakistan Alexey Dedov arrived at the PIIA on Friday evening to a very warm welcome. Since the ambassador’s last visit, the moderator of the event said there had been a great change in the global scene and “we look with interest at Russia’s role in world affairs, especially in Syria, and other global issues”. Discussing Russia’s “stabilising role” in South Asia, Mr Dedov, who has also served in India, Bangladesh and Iran, said that the modern world was undergoing a profound transformation.

He added that they were also witnessing dynamic changes in international relations. “Globalisation and technological progress contribute to the increased independence of nations,” he said. Talking about nuclear weapons, Ambassador Dedov said that the Russia Federation stood at the forefront of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. “Russia has made unprecedented contribution to the progress of this by cutting down its nuclear capacity by 85 per cent over the last 30 years,” he said. Another very important issue, according to Mr Dedov, is the prevention of the arms race in outer space and thus excluding it from becoming a new arena and yet another battleground for military confrontation. “Thus Russia, China and Pakistan along with many others are promoting this and are in negotiation to stop weapons from going into outer space,” he said, adding that Russia was also working with Pakistan to counter terrorism.

Dr Masuma Hasan: Two Centuries of Russia’s Institute of Oriental Studies

The Russian Institute of Oriental Studies marks not only 200 years of its founding but makes a statement about a changed world

Some institutions are resilient and survive the ups and downs of fate. Others cannot sustain themselves and fall by the wayside. A great survivor is the Institute of Oriental Studies (IOS) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which commemorates the 200th anniversary of its founding this year. The bicentennial was recently celebrated in October in Moscow with a congress. The congress itself, where I was invited to speak, was a gala event — essentially a Russian affair with marginal input from Western scholars, which is what made it remarkable. In Pakistan, we are used to only hearing about and from Western academics about the region. It coincided with Russian’s tilt to the East in world affairs, a celebration of the Asian part of its Eurasian identity. President Vladmir Putin did not attend the congress but a message from him was read out at the inauguration. As much as anything, the gathering signalled the increasingly multi-polar nature of our world.

The IOS was founded in 1818, in Russia during the reign of Emperor Alexander I. It has gone through many vicissitudes through empire, wars, invasions, revolution and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was originally established in St. Petersburg as the Asian Museum under the Imperial Academy of Sciences, as a depository of oriental manuscripts and a library facilitating scientific research. In 1950, the institute was shifted to Moscow, becoming a major centre of oriental studies. Today its depositories house more than one million volumes of ancient books and manuscripts. In 2008, the St. Petersburg (later Leningrad) branch was reorganised into a separate Institute of Oriental Manuscripts. The institute in Moscow is a unique venue for the study of the problems in history and cultures of the Orient, especially the countries of Asia and North Africa. Hundreds of experts work there.

Dr Masuma Hasan: Fate of an Icon

Empress Market was not meant to be a museum.

Those of us who have seen Empress Market develop over the years into the vibrant heart of Saddar in Karachi wonder about its fate after the anti-encroachment drive of recent days. At the risk of repetition, it may be relevant to recall its glorious past. It is believed the British used this space to execute freedom fighters after the uprising of 1857, and that the ground on which it stands is hallowed by the blood of martyrs. Those who were not hanged or sent via Karachi port to Kala Pani, as the prison in the Andaman Islands was called, were tied to the mouths of cannons and blown to smithereens as a message to anybody who dared risk mutiny. However, legend has it that every morning the British found the massacre ground strewn with rose petals — the red of the petals signifying the blood of the freedom fighters. Fearing the space would become a permanent memorial to the martyrs, they decided to build a monument on the site dedicated to Queen Victoria, Empress of India. Empress Market was built as a market, a bazaar. It was not meant to be a museum or gala dining room. And it developed as a thriving bazaar in which items of daily use, including some exotic ones, were available under one roof.

It was a shoppers’ paradise visited by people from even distant neighbourhoods. Around it sprang up vegetable, fruit and tea markets, and the fabulous bird market where one could buy pigeons, parakeets, parrots and many rare birds. The shopkeepers were a multi-ethnic community, something to cherish and celebrate. Poor-friendly hawking also developed in the lanes and by-lanes around the market. Empress Market has great political significance for our country. It has been a meeting ground for countless political rallies and demonstrations. It was also the focal point from where the leaders and activists of the Movement for Restoration of Democracy against Ziaul Haq courted arrest in 1983. The eateries and cafés within and around it were frequented since Partition by young progressives, some of whom rose to political eminence.